AN: Doubling up once again, as both of these are relatively short.
Characters/Pairing: Hawke/Fenris
Rating: G
Word Count: 900
Notes: Anonymous asked: What's your saddest Fenris headcanon? (I don't know why I'm asking this, god, curiosity is going to kill me)
—
You weren't always this way, Fenris. Once upon a time you had affection for me. I remember it fondly.
—
There are, when he forget to guard himself, things he misses from Tevinter.
It is not only the easy memories, the spices and the rich smells and the sight of a bazaar dripping with silks. Nor is it the welcome dry heat of Minrathous summers lost to this new bitter chill of Kirkwall, every season made shorter by thick winds off the Waking Sea and the walls of Hightown towering over all below. It would not be so hard to ward himself if it were.
Instead he startles at the market, when he emerges from his thoughts to realize the language spoken here is foreign and hard, that there is not a soul in a hundred miles who would welcome his mother tongue were he to offer it at all. Instead he looks at the dusty cellar of Hawke's estate with the wine-racks draped with cobwebs, and he remembers the cool stone floors of Danarius's estate, the bottles gleaming, lined one by one on the shelves with absolute precision and care. He looks at the squabbling, petty nobles in the Viscount's faded antechambers and he remembers the silent arches of the Archon's palace, white marble sweeping high above his head into perfect dimness, carved faces silent and stern where they stared from every wall, where they knew those who begged favor to be unworthy. He looks at the rough unfinished hexes of Lowtown and he remembers the harder, beautiful avenues that cut through the high cities, olive trees throwing gentle silvered shade on the magisters' silk-soft palanquins, their skin softer still from their magic. They had been a sea of their own, the trees, winds from the sea blowing them into an endless sigh that welcomed him at every passing.
He stops himself when he can, when he remembers that that life is done and has no place in his memories that is not loathing. He was a slave. He was their slave. He should not—
He forces himself to remember the worst times, the moments he was weakest then as shield against the moments he is weakest now. The beatings are easiest to draw to his mind, the few times his back was torn to bleeding by an impassive whip, the sharper blows of a hand at smaller offenses; and the nights with Hadriana, sinuous whispers in his sleep and in his soul, speaking lies until he snapped; and the biting thoughts of Danarius's rooms and Danarius's bed, where there was less pain and more humiliation and neither punishment nor reward, only endurance.
Hate this, he tells himself. Hate them and everything they've done, and wonder why the hate consumes you—
(It is hard to hate the memory of pride glowing in his chest, his master's eyes fond on him and his master's hand gentle on his back. It is hard to hate the remembered satisfaction of knowing his own skill and his mastery of his own self perfect, of the knowledge that he was of all his master's house the best, the strongest, the most-loved. It is hard to hate the only memories he has of happiness in those years, honest pleasure, when his head was on his master's knee and long nails stroked tenderly through his hair, down the spread of his shoulders where he bent them.)
(It is hard to hate a thing he knows he once loved more than life. It is harder to know his master had not been only cruel.)
Therefore—
Therefore he must be vigilant at all times. He must scorn the place he came from and the man he was when he lived there, because to do otherwise is to allow his master hold on his heart even now, even ten years running and the word freedom in his mouth. He must despise Tevinter, think of it only with fury and rancor, vengeance held tight in his heart and hand.
Do not think of the two young boys in the far fields, laughing as he returned to them their lost ball, Danarius looking on indulgently. Do not think of the precious sweetmeats saved from the master's table for the kitchens, the sly grins as a chocolate was plucked from a platter and divided amongst those nearest before the rest was taken to table. Do not think of the silent dawns of the practice yard, where sweat was honest and his sword was heavy in his hand, his chest bare to the morning mist, breathless as the world slowly burned into life beneath Tevinter's sun.
No. He must kill the man he was, the one who knew the yoke and wore it proudly. To know freedom is to abhor the slave; how can he claim the word his own if he still harbors fondness for the chain? Make that self a shadow, black and without form, a thing to put at his back and never face.
It seems fitting, then, he thinks in those weakest moments, that it drags at his heels every moment, a weight he can never shake.
(He still, despite everything, loves the olive trees.)
Characters/Pairing: Hawke/Fenris
Rating: G
Word Count: 600
Notes: Anonymous asked: Hi, so, um, a little while ago you answered an anon ask about your thoughts on the level of reconciliation between Eppie and Fenris after All That Remains? And you mentioned that there were stolen kisses during that whole awkward three years. And I wondered if you had maybe any drabbles or ficlets or little notes-to-self lying around that you wanted to share (or have already shared somewhere)? Because *squee*. You are super and so is Eppie. I'm just going to crawl back under my rock now. 3
—
Fenris is not used to seeing Hawke bedridden. Mages in general, if he is honest; magisters tended to die quickly and brilliantly when their magic failed in battle, and few permitted themselves to linger through the indignity of long illness. But here Hawke lies, eyes bruised, bandaged shoulder to hip and held together by little more than stitches, Anders's desperate attempts to mitigate the damage of the Arishok's sword.
Sword, he thinks, and his lips twist. Cleaver.
He does not move, but something in the quiet afternoon stirs Hawke to wakefulness. She blinks slowly, a confusion in her face that disquiets him with its strangeness, and her hand half-rises from the bedcovers before falling again. "Fenris?" she says, and slurs the word. She still has not looked at him.
"Hawke."
She blinks again; then her eyes clear on him where he sits in the wooden armchair pulled to her bedside, and her eyebrows lift in something like lucidity. "Am I still dreaming?"
Relief surges in his throat; he cannot help the smile. "Do all your dreams involve such suffering on your part?"
"Only most of the time," she says, but she grins to soften it. "How long have you been here?"
"Not long."
"Liar."
He shakes his head, leaning forward. With relief comes the memory of fear, and he can still see too clearly the horrifying juxtaposition of sword and skin, Hawke's limbs dangling doll-like into open air. "I was…concerned."
The touch of her hand on his knotted fingers startles him out of memory; at her clear concern he rises, bends over her as her hand lifts to his chest—to draw him nearer or push him away, he doesn't know. He only knows that she nearly died and he did nothing to stop it, and he cannot leave the words unsaid. Not this time. "You worried me, Hawke."
"I worried myself." Her fingers twitch on his shirt; her head shifts restlessly on the pillows. "I certainly didn't intend to get skewered, if that's any comfort."
"It is not."
Hawke rolls her eyes, but before she can voice whatever witticism is on her tongue Fenris moves his hand to her cheek, the backs of his fingers brushing carefully across her temple. "It is not," he says again, lower, surprised by his own boldness, and bends until his forehead touches hers. He needs to feel her warmth, to feel her breath and know—
She does not push him away; neither does she turn. Instead her hand clenches into his shirt for a long, stretching moment; then it slides to the back of his neck, and when she tugs he lets himself be moved, lets her angle her head against his until his nose bumps hers and her mouth glances over his own.
Not enough. He threads his fingers into her hair, carefully, bends nearer until he can kiss her properly and with as much care as he knows how to give. He does not stay—she is hurt and he is—hurting—and soon enough she releases him herself, drops her hand away, watches him slowly take his seat again at her side. His heart will not slow.
"I can't promise I won't do it again," she says at last, her eyes guarded, the bruises darkened by the sun streaming through her window.
Fenris laughs, shaky and unamused. "This?" he asks, gesturing between them, "or—the Arishok?"
"Either," Hawke says, and Fenris sighs. He expects no less; and he knows himself well enough to realize he will not stop her, either.
The conversation turns after that to safer things, but Fenris thinks of the way she gripped him for a long time.